


hold me like we're going home

by gracedbybattle



Series: tell me where the good men go [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Movie: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Space family, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:28:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23312380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracedbybattle/pseuds/gracedbybattle
Summary: They were here at the beginning. It's only fitting that they should all be here at the end.The Ghost at the Battle of Exegol.
Relationships: Ezra Bridger & Hera Syndulla, Ezra Bridger & Kanan Jarrus, Hera Syndulla & Jacen Syndulla, Kanan Jarrus & Hera Syndulla, Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Series: tell me where the good men go [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639906
Comments: 7
Kudos: 67





	hold me like we're going home

The _Ghost_ has seen her fair share of battles. Back in the days of the old Rebellion, Han Solo used to make a habit out of ribbing her who had the more illustrious ship, the _Ghost_ or the _Falcon_ , but to her it’s never been close. Through the years, her ship has outmaneuvered and outmatched TIE’s over Lothal, Yavin IV, Scarif, Endor, Hoth, and too many to count. 

_Well,_ Hera Syndulla thinks to herself, staring out the window of the familiar cockpit at the armada of ships driving on Exegol. _We can add one more to the list._

“All systems online,” she calls out to her crew. “Ready to engage.”

Beyond the safe confines of the _Ghost_ ahead lies the surface of Exegol, a fleet of Star Destroyers littering its sky. The atmosphere here is tricky, a storm looks like it’s brewing in the distance, and the air has an underlying chill that strikes a shiver down her arm. It’s not cold really, not the way Hoth’s surface had made the ice hang from her boots and stuck like crystals to Jacen’s hair. 

It’s almost an inner chill, something deep inside of her that says this place is wrong. She’s not force sensitive, not like her son, but even she can feel the evil that seeps from this place, like the planet’s very core is rotten. 

It reminds her of another Sith planet, years ago, and she’s struck with a memory she hasn’t had in years. 

_The sunshine gleaming off the horizon of Chopper Base, the brilliant pinks and yellows of the evening, the Phantom cutting across the sky and the deep pitted knowledge that something was wrong._

_Kanan, walking off under Ezra’s arm with that stark white bandage over his eyes. Her stomach sinks at the sight of them, grief and pain palatable in the air._

She hasn’t thought about that in a long time. 

“All fighters, on me,” Lando Calrissen’s voice rings over her comm, a familiar sound that takes her back to a different time. She’d never imagined, the day that they met, that she might be standing arm in arm with him years later to fight the enemy. It could be today, or thirty years ago, Endor or Exegol, and they’re going to lay in all on the line for the fate of the galaxy. 

Jacen is manning the top gun, Ezra the nose, and Chopper at her side. Sabine is out there, somewhere commanding a ship of her own with the Mandalorians, and she wonders if Zeb and Alex are too. She knows Wedge is manning the _Falcon_ with Lando. Everyone she’s ever known, that’s still alive, might be on this battlefield with them. 

_Once more into the fire,_ she thinks watching more ships arrive at their side, as they set their aim on the enemy and dive into the fray. 

\-- 

“I’ve lost the power up here!” Ezra shouts through the hold a full second before the whole world goes dark. The unnatural storm brewing outside over Exegol is obviously the culprit as a bolt of strange lightning strikes the _Ghost’s_ hull and Hera sucks in a breath, waiting for the shock to hit. But it never does. 

Instead, the whole ship goes black, screens dark, power cut. Everything is off, she realizes with a sickening feeling a half second before the _Ghost_ shutters and starts falling through the sky. 

Chopper squeals the loudest, although Jacen, far back in the upper gun nose, is a close thing. 

She hears the thud of Ezra’s boots approach and feels rather than sees him stumble into the space behind her, lean forward and grab the back of her seat. The Force is probably the only thing that keeps him from tumbling head first through the hallway.

“Hera?” he calls over the sickening silence as they start to fall, a crack in his voice. She can feel his fingers taut against her headrest, gripping like he’s holding on for dear life. The _Ghost_ is falling towards the surface, power completely cut like the whole thing is completely dead, and nothing she’s doing is working. 

“I’m trying, I’m trying!” she shouts back at him, feeling the panic whelm up. It has to be an effect of whatever is happening on the planet below, she can see the other ships falling around them and they’re calling out over the comm in her ear. _Power’s gone! My system’s are offline! We’re going to crash!_ The panicked voices of the other pilots, friends, family members, ringing in her ear is terrifying. 

_This isn’t it,_ she thinks, trying to slam the panic from her brain. _This can’t be it._ She refuses to go down like this, refuses to be shot out of the sky with Ezra at her back and Jacen above them. They didn’t make it this far, they didn’t fly against two Death Stars, a handful of Sith and fight with the Jedi to die in the sky over Exegol. 

“Ezra, it’s all dead. Chopper and I are out. I need a little help!” 

She turns to face him and sees all her fears reflected in his face. It never fails to strike her how much older Ezra is now, hair longer and tied at the back of his neck, tall and strong with a self confidence that speaks of his years. It makes her feel so much older. He meets her eyes with a strength that screams of Kanan, _Kanan years ago_ , and a wave of emotion bubbles in her throat. 

His face steels, his eyes close and she waits. A few seconds feel like minutes and the ship is still falling. Chopper is whirling with concern, and he must have magnetized himself to the floor since he’s not moved an inch. The X-Wings, A-Wings, the entire fleet is falling around them like it’s raining ships and she’s struck with the need so fiercely to be beside Jacen that she can’t stand it. 

“Not now Mom!” her son calls down the hallway and she must be absolutely _screaming_ to project that to him without even realizing it. 

“He’s helping me,” Ezra mutters to her without opening his eyes, jaw tightening with concentration on what he’s doing. He has one hand still gripping her seat up the other is outstretched in front of him, steady and strong. 

It’s a familiar pose, one that she’s seen from him, from Jacen, Ahsoka, and Luke. It’s a Jedi, deep in concentration with the Force and it’s the only chance they have. 

Suddenly, the ship decelerates, it’s fall through the sky grinding to a halt before it can plunge into the planet’s surface. The whole thing groans with the effort of being held aloft, straightening out and rocking slightly from side to side and Hera sags with the tension. 

“I’ve got it,” Ezra says without moving, grimacing with the effort. His voice has a slight strain, betraying how taxing it is. She can’t remember if Ezra’s even attempted something this difficult, wonders if Ahsoka or Kanan ever even practiced something like this with him. She can’t see Jacen but she can imagine he’s doing the same thing, arms outstretched in the gunner’s seat, lifting and helping Ezra to keep them from plunging to a violent death. 

They hang there for a moment, suspended in the air with nothing but the Force as a tether above a Sith-damned planet, and she makes a moment to thank the stars that of all the boys she could have been given in the galaxy, that it’s these two. 

Minutes tick by, the storm raging outside. She doesn’t dare say a word to distract them, just punches away at the screen, desperate to reboot auxiliary power, back systems, anything. An eternity seems to pass, though it can’t be more than a few minutes. 

Suddenly, the entire air seems to change, like it’s charged with a different energy. The lightning stops, the storm begins to recede. Hera blinks, prays her eyes aren’t fooling her, and watches as the sky begins to clear. 

The lights blink back on in the cockpit, the support systems kicking in and Hera blinks for a second in disbelief. “It’s back on!” The systems are booting back on, the engines whirling to life and Chopper beeps sharly in relief, demagnetizing and scuttling back to the panel.

She’s so engaged in getting them back to join the fray that she almost misses Ezra's sharp intake of breath. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees his frame go ridged, like something is about to run him through. It doesn’t even sound like he’s breathing. 

“Ezra?” she asked distractedly. “I think Chopper has the weapon systems up again. We could use you on the forward gun,” hoping to draw him out of whatever he’s thinking. He doesn’t answer, so she turns. 

Ezra’s complexion has gone milk white, his face devoid of any color and he’s staring desperately out the window at something she can’t see. He looks gutted, desperate, like he’s seen a ghost. 

“Ezra? Ezra!” 

It’s like he can’t even hear her, arm still outstretched as though he’s reaching for something. A proximity alarm blares at her, they’re still in a firefight here, and she yanks the yoke to the left hard to avoid crashing into one of their own pilots veering too close. 

The others are coming back online, X-Wings zipping between ships and, Force above, the Star Destroyers are starting to fall out of the sky. They aren’t moving, giant hulking things now just sitting ducks waiting to be picked off by the Resistance. _This is it,_ she realizes, fire and adrenaline flooding her veins. _This is our moment._

It’s so chaotic that she almost misses the soft words that slip out of Ezra’s mouth next. 

_“Kanan.”_

The name sends a shard of ice through her heart, so quick and sudden she can hardly breathe. One name shouldn’t still be able to rock her to her core, but this one always will. 

Something has changed on the surface, that much she can feel and see in the turn of the tide. Lando has mentioned in passing that they had someone on their side that was special. Someone like Ezra, like Jacen. She’d taken it with a grain of salt. She’s seen a lot since those early days on Gorse, back when Kanan was a little more than a gunslinger and the Rebellion was just a dream. 

She’s also seen a lot of impostors. So, she’s cautious when someone tells her there’s a miracle out there. Best to be wary until she can see it herself. 

_She can still see the rumble and fire of what was left of Skywalker’s temple. The sight of the bodies and the smell of ash. She’d prayed a silent, selfish prayer in that moment that she’d never allowed Jacen to be taken from her, that he was safe and sound at home on Ryloth instead of dead among the flames, cut down by Leia’s own son._

_It was the first time she’d seen Leia cry and the last time she’d seen her in person._

“Kanan,” Ezra mutters again, looking like he’s shell shocked. He’s a mile away right now, reaching out with his outstretched hand like there’s someone in front of him. Like there’s _someone_ in front of him, Hera realizes and it hits her like a ton of bricks. _Could it..._

Jacen bursts into the main cabin at the same moment. “Mom, Ezra!” he yells. Her son is a man now, no longer a little boy, his green hair tousled and his eyes bright. He’s tall, strong and stout with a blaster at his side and a disassembled ‘saber on his belt. “Look!”

Hera follows Jacen’s gaze and sees that the Resistance, _the Rebellion_ her mind cannot forget, has overwhelmed and overtaken the First Order. The Star Destroyers are broken, falling to the sky in a spectacular display that would normally send her into the air in jubilation. 

But she’s distracted. 

“Jacen, take the helm,” she says, grabbing for Ezra and tossing her son the comm. “Keep us steady. Chopper, stay with him. We’ll rendevu back to base as soon as they give the all clear.” Jacen nods at her, shoots a quick concerned look at Ezra who still looks something close to catanotic. “I’ve got him,” she reassures him, more confident that she feels. “You take care of us.” 

“Chop and I got this,” he grins back and Chopper warbles an affirmative next to him. He turns back the viewpoint to give them some semblance of privacy as she turns to Ezra who is starting to come out of his stupor and just melts to the floor. She sinks beside him. 

“Ezra?” she whispers softly, stroking a hand through his hair. “Ezra, can you hear me?” 

His eyes are clearer now and he raises his chin to focus on her. He’s back, from wherever he went in the last couple of minutes. She can see that now. She’s always been able to read Ezra in his eyes. He shutters with a watery breath, shaking with minute tremors, and she can’t help it, she hauls him into her arms and just _holds_ him. He’s almost too tall to even fit in her arms anymore, but he defies his own size by folding up against her side and tucking his head under her chin. 

He may be an adult now, but he’s still her kid. He will always be her kid. Hers and Kanan’s. No matter how old he gets, he’ll be that too-skinny little boy with a mop of dark hair that used to stick to Kanan like a loth-kitten, taking half steps to keep with Kanan’s long strides.

Their boy has grown up into a man. She sees so much of Kanan in him, even if she tries not to. It isn’t fair to compare them, but she can’t help it. The way he holds himself, the way he ties his hair back when it’s long, the grimace on his face when he can’t figure something out, the way he sets his hands on Jacen’s shoulder when he’s explaining something, it screams of Kanan. A blessing and a curse. 

“I’m here,” Ezra surprises her with a response and she stares. He’s still clinging to her arm but he looks a little more centered now. “I’m okay.”

“You scared me,” she admits without even thinking. “What happened? What was that?”

Ezra shakes his head, hair tickling the skin under her chin. “I don’t know really,” he says and takes a shuddering breath. He’s still trembling and makes no effort to move away from her. She rubs a hand against his arm, up and down in a steady motion. “I was holding us up, Jacen and me,” he says as though she didn’t already know. She nods. 

“And I just…” he trails off like he’s not even sure of the words to use. She nods again, as encouraging as she knows how to be. Her arms continue the motion, up and down, up and down. He sucks in a breath and lets it out, wet with emotion and buries his face against her chest. 

“I felt..I _heard_...I heard Kanan,” he admits, voice muffled by the fabric of her flight suit. 

And that. Well. She wasn’t expecting that. “You...what?” she asked, a little dumbfounded. “Are you sure?”

She can feel the emotion prickling in her throat and her eyes and stubbornly taps it down. _He needs you now,_ she furiously reminds herself. She can feel Jacen’s attention on them even if he isn’t looking back, ears tracking every word. She feels a rush of appreciation for her son’s inexhaustible discretion. 

“I’m sure,” he says with a watery breath. Stars, but she hasn’t seen Ezra cry in years. It nearly brings her to tears. 

“How?” she asks, not quite able to mask the crack in her voice. 

“I don’t know,” Ezra whispers, fingers curling firmer into the fabric of her suit like it’s holding him together.

“I was so focused on holding the ship, I didn’t notice it at first. But then there were these voices, just whispering, and they sounded so familiar. Like it was coming from the Force.”

Hera doesn’t dare say a word and interrupt him. She nods silently. 

“And it was far away but I could make out some of the words. They were saying someone’s name,” Ezra continues. “And then I heard Kanan’s voice with them. He was encouraging someone, telling them that strength comes from the heart,” and his voice just cracks at the end. 

He can’t hold the tears pooling in his eyes back anymore and his quiet sob tears at her heart. She can’t believe what he’s saying and the implications it has.

“Shhh,” she rocks him slightly and he fists her flight suit that much tighter, burying his head onto her shoulder. It sounds insane, but her heart is hammering in her chest. 

The Force works in strange ways, Kanan and Ahsoka always used to say, and Ezra tried to explain once what they meant by that, but she couldn’t wrap her head around it.

It has sounded so inexplicable, when Ezra said that he could feel Kanan around them, that he was part of the Living Force now which meant that he was really in everything instead of just gone.

Sometimes she thinks she can feel Kanan behind her, like there’s a ghost on her shoulder, but it’s just wishful thinking. That’s what she tells herself. Maybe. 

She clutches him a little tighter. “Are you sure?” she whispers, like the sound could break them. 

Ezra nods against her shoulder. “I’m positive,” he says and his voice is sure. A young Ezra, a pre-Thrawn Ezra might have believed in things out of pure hope, but this grown version of Ezra does not.

That had been the hardest adjustment, once he returned from the wild regions with Ahsoka and Sabine. He’d left a boy and returned a man, fully grown, mature and pragmatic. He’d come back with the same sharp wit and a kind heart, but he was realistic in a way that made her sad. 

Now, it just makes her that much more sure. 

“How could you tell?” she asks, because she can’t help herself. 

Ezra sighs and he seems a bit calmer now. Like saying it out loud has taken a load out of him. “It was his voice. I’d know it. And I could feel it, feel him. The way I used to,” and it takes her a moment to realize he’s talking about the bond. 

Back then, before the liberation of Lothal, Kanan had explained to her the importance of a Force bond. That he could feel Ezra through it, his emotions, his thoughts, his pain, his happiness.

They could impart thoughts, send emotion through their bond and locate one another. It was a sacred thing, he’d said, that the old Jedi treated with reverence and Kanan was no exception. 

She knows Kanan’s death left a hole in all their lives, but it may have been more literal with Ezra that she could even comprehend. 

She shutters with the knowledge, a chill racing down her spine at the idea. At the thought of hearing Kanan’s voice again after all these years, of knowing he was there. She imagines the way his rich baritone used to echo through the halls of the _Ghost_ , chasing after Ezra, praising Sabine, sparing with Zeb, arguing with Rex.

How he used to tease her and love her, all in the same breath. 

It’s enough to split her wide open. No wonder Ezra is in pieces. She tightens her arms around him. 

“Then it was him,” she says and her voice is wet. “If anyone would know, you would.” Ezra shakes a bit in her arms, melting into her embrace just a little bit more. The way he used to when he was small enough to be lifted in her arms. Her heart aches. 

“Mom? Ezra?” Jacen is hovering at his shoulder now, staring down at them with concern. Ezra’s emotions are likely affecting him, leaking through the Force and transferring to Jacen. His eyes are wide with worry. She smiles at him, watery. 

“C’mere baby,” she says, tugging him down along with her and getting an eyeroll for her language. 

“Mom,” he protests though he slips to the floor easily and wraps an arm around her all the same. “I’m definitely not a baby anymore.”

“Hush,” she shushes him, winding an arm around his side and keeping the other around Ezra. She places a kiss on each of their heads and squeezes them to her. “You’ll both always be my boys.”

Jacen doesn’t protest, just closes his eyes and leans against her. Ezra seems calmer now too, silent tears drying on his face. They sit on the floor in a huddle, pressed against each other. It’s more soothing for her soul than anything else. 

She reaches up to scrub a hair through Jacen’s hair. “Ezra heard your dad,” she explains because he ought to know. “When you were holding the _Ghost_ up.” She combs through his bangs, watching them _shoosh_ against her hand. “You didn’t hear anyone, did you?”

Jacen scrunches his nose in thought. “Not really. I thought I heard something, but I figured it was just noise coming through the comm. There was a lot going on.” He shrugs. “I’m not sure I would have been able to recognize it.”

It hurts Hera, somewhere deep within, to be reminded of all the little things that Jacen doesn’t know about Kanan. The way he looked on the battlefield, the way he used to ground Ezra with just a hand his shoulder. His preference for tea. 

The meals he used to cook and the ones he used to burn. The way his voice sounded when he was proud, the way it sounded when he was mad. How expressive his face was, the color of his eyes.

The strength in his arms when he held you, like nothing could ever hurt you.

Her son wouldn’t know if his father was calling through the Force because Jacen has never actually heard his father’s voice, only in holos.

Ezra clears his throat. “It was him. He was here. I felt it.” His voice is small, but sure. 

A sobering silence falls over the _Ghost._ Hera holds her boys close, unwilling to let them go, no matter how grown they are or how old she feels. The comm is chattering away, cheers and shouts and in through the haze she realizes that they’ve won. 

She can feel the jubilation building outside and knows from experience that they are throwing one hell of a party tonight on Ajan Kloss. It might even be bigger than Endor. The Resistance has beaten back the First Order, driven their ships to the ground. It’s over. The war they started so many years ago is won, for good. 

She squeezes her boys tight to her side and says a silent prayer than wherever Kanan is, he knows.

**Author's Note:**

> Kanan was a voice guiding Rey against Palpaltine, and the TROS novelization confirmed the Ghost was at Exegol. 
> 
> Naturally, that led me here.


End file.
